Below are the 13 most recent journal entries recorded in reasoningralph's LiveJournal:

Thursday, October 4th, 2007
3:54 pm	Up-date Got rear ended today as I was backing out of a parking space at the grocery store--no injuries--just a fender bender--Am expecting week long visit from son coming in tomorrow--Rowan will come on Tuesday for overlap, We had planned to visit San Diego to help son celebrate 50th birthday and Rowan had planned to come down to SD, We're getting together here because Joanne's medical trials scotched all of our travel plans. Jo will see surgeon on Tues for post-op follow-up. Am having first garage sale this Saturday--have threatened to just park a dumpster in the driveway and shovel the house out-- Current Mood: expectant (Comment on this)
Wednesday, September 19th, 2007
10:49 pm	medical update For whomever might be following our medical odyssey--Saw vascular surgeon yesterday--Joanne is scheduled for a rt carotid endarterectomy next Monday--our GP wanted me to have my carotids scanned as well and mine came out clear. As you might imagine there is a fair bit of anxiety associated with the surgery but the doctor seemed confident that it will go well--He says he does about 50 such operations per year. This type of surgery would have been impossible when I was in med school. Current Mood: anxious (Comment on this)
Thursday, September 13th, 2007
9:05 pm	The President's address I have just heard George Bush talking about "moral imperatives". I have just written my Congressman. It seems to me that we have a moral imperative to get our troops out of Iraq. It seems clear that the average human in the territory we call Iraq does not identify as an Iraqi--rather they identify as a Sunni or Shia or "tribal" Certainly makes it hard to arrive at any acceptable "political solution". My Congressman is young and comes across as a terribly earnest evangelical Christian who talks a good game about fiscal responsibility and "values". One of my questions to him was about the fiscal responsibility of waging war on borrowed money. I also asked him if he had seen the Bill Moyer's program where the legal case for impeaching George Bush had been presented and asked him why Congress had failed to act. I do not expect any action on his part--I know some staffer will read it and file it in the waste basket but I felt better getting it off my chest. (Comment on this)
Monday, September 10th, 2007
11:02 am	time lapse Cannot seem to get accustomed to journal entries--have had a couple of medical things come up--My wife had a brief TIA two weeks ago--four hours of expressive aphasia and transient paralysis of rt arm--very scary--i also have seemed to have lost the game of genetic roulette and have been diagnosed with Type II diabetes--I had always assumed if i kept my weight down I would be skipped but with a diabetic mother, two diabetic brothers and a diabetic daughter if seem fated and fate has finally caught up. I remain active in volleyball and will continue to fish at least 1x week. My Dad, whom I quote extensively said, "Son. The Lord does not count against a man's life span the hours he spends fishing. You know how the Lord loved fishermen." Others of his pearls were, "Son, you can marry more money in a minute than you can earn in a lifetime." I ignored that one. A final one. "It is better to wear out than rust out." That one I'm working on. Eightieth birthday on the 28th. Current Mood: pensive (Comment on this)
Sunday, April 1st, 2007
12:52 pm	Palm Sunday Went to our Sunday School class and then split. The liturgy for Palm Sunday is not my favorite--it jerks you around emotionally--first you parade in waving palms and singing and 20 minutes later are shouting "Crucify him!"..I think of myself as Christian contaminated by a huge chunk of universalism. The Trancendant manifests in so many ways and speaks in different ways to each and everyone of us--Joseph Campbell opined that each religion's language and imagery is like "software" and we can get really confused if we mix them too much and the product is a mishmash. My language of experience is Judeo-Christian and while not entirely satisfied with it --it describes best for me my experience of the Mystery. (Comment on this)
Monday, March 26th, 2007
10:06 am	I'm back I can't believe it's been so many months sans entry--I have finished my annual obeisance to the IRS and am getting ready to compete in the 2007 USAV National Championships. They will be played here in Austin over the Memorial Day time period. I will be playing on a 70s team called the "Wunderkinds" and a 75 team called the "TEXtras". One of the blessings I count everyday is that my knees and shoulders have held up. Volleyball is the one sport I have always been a bit better than average in. As a Lenten thing we were give a flower pot with a "tree or bush" of bare twigs and a handful of colorful ribbons--each time we think of a blessing we tie a bow of ribbon on the tree--I am getting quite a rainbow. I use my boat as a sort of ministry--taking people fishing who don't ordinarily have the chance. This is crappie spawning season so I have been going two or three times a week with different folks. Last Friday my fishing partner was Jerry Horton, who with his wife Judy, founded "Down Home Ranch" about 16-17 years ago. they had a late-in-life pregnancy which resulted in a Down's Syndrome child. They both worked at UT. They quit and bought property about 45 miles east of Austin and have developed it into a remarkable environment for the mentally challenged. Check out downhomeranch.com. I have conceived this msg to my congressman a 2nd term Republican. Since the Democrats have said they will not impeach Bush perhaps the Republicans might consider it as a way to save their party. A face-saving US strategy in Iraq might be to couch the mission in terms of rebuilding the infrastructure. Remove all civilian contractors and turn the job over to Army engineers and Navy CBs with enough tactical support to protect them. Turn everything else over to the Iraqis. (Comment on this)
Thursday, November 16th, 2006
11:10 pm	keeping in touch Had good visit with three if my kids and families over past weekend, Ralph and Christy had succumbed to an enticement which flew them to Texas to see property in Horseshoe Bay--they bought a lot as an "investment". Paul and Alec, who came from Dallas area, and Martha and her family, Joanne and I and Ralph and Christy all had breakfast togethr on Sat. I am delighted to witness the obvious affection the sibs have for one another. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, November 7th, 2006
11:51 pm	keeping in touch I have promised myself to write as often as possible. The election was to day and Bush and cabal have been soundly rrejected. I'm afraid the damage has already been done. America will never again have the ability to claim the moral high ground.. Couldn''t find anyone to go fishing with me today. I no longer go by myself if travel is involved. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, November 6th, 2006
12:38 am	another try I have been neglecting this journal since writing does not come as easily to me as talking, I have voted early. Carol Keeton Strayhorn is running for governor of Texas as an Independent. She has held local and state positions running as a Democrat and most recently as a Republican. I figured she has dirt on every one and might be able to get something done in this do nothing state. As I went down the ballot I voted for every woman regardless of party affiliation. I figured maybe they would break of the "good ol" boy" network. I am a cynic about politics. Two tours of duty in D.C. and growing up in Jackson County Missouri during the years of the Pendergast machine were educational. I started caddying in 1939 at a country club frequented by many judges and political appointees. No one pays any attention to their caddy. I found out that the crooks in Missouri were called Democrats and the crooks in Kansas were called Repulicans. A well recollected incident was of a foursome plotting to land a small aircraft on one of the fairways, load it with booze, and fly it over to a golf course in Topeka for one of the governor's parties. Kansas at the time was a dry state. Since I check my e-mail every day I'll try to be more religious in writing. (Comment on this)
Friday, April 21st, 2006
2:08 pm	Thanks to commenters I appreciate the feedback--particularly like "keepers" as a more distressing title than "handlers". Not yet into journaling like Rowan--will probably take time to get me really computer literate. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, April 18th, 2006
11:38 pm	Comment five: Dancing Bears You know we are in trouble when our president has "handlers' rather than advisers--dancing bears have handlers. in case you missed it--This month's "Atlantic" has a number of articles (reprinted from older editions) by environmentally concerned folks dating back to Thoreau--Greenness has an honorable history. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, April 11th, 2006
11:09 am	Comment Four I am haunted by the Toolmaker Koan--not the rather nice scifi pot boiler by John McLoughlin but by the koan he puts forth. I do not have the book before so let me paraphrase it in my understanding. "On any planet, in any solar system in the universe, when a species becomes the head of the food chain by the use of tools, the species will always destroy their planet because the evolution of tools is more rapid than the evolution of the species." (my old English teacher would accuse me of "comma sprinkling") In the world thus pictured you wind up with an hunter -gatherer with an atomic bomb. See why as I look round I am haunted? (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Sunday, April 9th, 2006
10:01 am	Personal background I suppose you'd like to know something about the person with whom you are reasoning. I was born during the presidency of Calvin Coolidge.. I am a survivor of the depression. I missed WWII by being in boot camp on VJ day. i spent two years in the Maritime Service and the Merchant Marine. In 1947 I returned to college (no GI Bill for Merchant Seamen) and eventually earned two masters and two doctoral degrees. I retired from the navy in 1979--during my navy career I had two tours of duty in Washington DC where I learned to vote against incumbents. I have voted in every election during the years of my majority. I never voted a straight ticket until the recent election in which we got a Republican president and congress. I voted a straight Democratic ticket. My comment as we saddled ourselves with this cabal was "God help the poor people". On the personal side -- I have been very happily married for 56 years. I have been a scifi fan since 1939, I have been a bass tournament fisherman (I still fish at least once weekly) I am a member of my church choir and a lay reader. I became a Christian after making my Cursillo in 1979--prior to that I was a good churchman. I am not hung up on any one expression of mans' relationship with the transcendent. As Joseph Campbell would say, "Christian software was what I grew up with. I'm sure I will reveal more about myself as I write. Comment One: I think we make too much about oil as a driving force for our imperial actions in Iraq. I believe an unnoticed force in our governments decisions are the needs of our principal industry which is the provision of armaments to our government and others. This is one of the largest employers in our country. Eisenhower's "military industrial complex" is real. I believe at least one factor in the 1990 decision to have a demonstration war with Iraq was need to promote the sale of some of our newer technology and missiles. The Berlin wall had fallen--market share of armaments by American companies was threatened--ergo--the demonstration war-- Comment Two: What do you think of when you hear the phrase "foreign aid'? Do you imagine American dollars building infrastructure in Third World countries. I hate to disillusion you. Most of our "foreign aid" is in the form of a blank check to our "allies" to spend in the US on equipment and training for their militaries. I have been the escort for a Thai admiral with a shopping list. Since he was an admiral in their medical corps most of what we looked at was newer medical technology--I remember a particular interest in physiology of deep sea diving among other things. Comment three: Can you imagine a scenario in which after 9/11 the president of the US came on television and said, "An abomination has been committed in the name of Allah, the merciful and beneficent. I am calling on the world, each and every one who hears my voice, to a period of reflection on the kind of a world we have made in which otherwise intelligent young men feel committed to the killing of thousands of innocent people including their co-religionists. I am requesting the opportunity to address the Congress of the US and the United Nations presenting a plan to alleviate the growing disparity betweent the "haves"and the"have nots" in every country. God save us all" What I observed was a president who opted for the religion of Caesar while professing to be a Christian. (12 Comments |Comment on this)